


Valar Morghulis

by Willowbarb



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 14:08:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18757981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowbarb/pseuds/Willowbarb
Summary: Sandor Clegane would never claim to be a good man...





	Valar Morghulis

Sandor Clegane had been a happy child, until the day his brother pushed his face into the fire and held it there. His father’s Maester had been a brilliant man, and so he did not die, despite Sandor’s best efforts to do so.

He lived, brutally scarred, and by night and by day the memories of that fire and that pain constantly played over and over again behind his eyes; he endured it. 

People died around his brother Gregor: father, sister, a couple of wives, but Sandor survived by taking service with the Lannisters, as all members of House Clegane did. And there in the Kingsguard Sandor tried to give what little kindness he could to those trapped in the snake pit of the game of thrones, ruled by a psychopath ordering the death of children and anyone else offending him. 

He had saved Loras Tyrell from his brother Gregor’s madness, but killed the boy Micah, he had prevented Sansa Stark from pushing Joffrey to his death, knowing the drawn out agony which Cersei would inflict upon the girl who murdered her most beloved child.

And when Stannis Baratheon brought blood and fire to Kingslanding Sandor had fought to overcome his terror long enough to offer an escape to Sansa Stark; she would not take it. 

When he came upon Arya he thought that she was like her sister; a little bird who should be returned to the nest in return for a reward. Since Sandor Clegane was not a stupid man he rapidly realised his mistake; Arya was nothing like Sansa. Indeed, she wasn’t like anyone he had ever met, and he had met quite a few in his life. 

They had traveled long and far together, and despite the bitterness of that journey’s ending at the hands and sword of Brienne of Tarth, and Arya’s refusal to grant him the mercy of the coup de grâce, to Sandor Clegane it had been worth it. He had never had a child of his own to teach, and so he had taught Arya how to fight dirty, how to fight to win, how to slide her knife into a man’s heart. He had taught her well.

Later, when the Dragon Queen, Daenerys Targaryen, had saved their sorry asses from their deaths beyond the Wall, and snatched the wight to take south to prove that threat to the whole of humanity really existed, he could almost bring himself to admit that she reminded him of Arya. For Sandor Clegane that was a compliment.

And when fire and blood came to Winterfell, and the terror brought by fire raged within him, Beric and that damned priestess had called him back from it to kill, and to keep killing, to give Arya a chance to save all of them.

The gossip swirling around Winterfell about Sansa Stark breaking a sworn oath to Jon Snow in order to try and destroy the Dragon Queen passed Sandor Clegane by; he disdained such things.

But when he heard Sansa Stark tell him that she did not regret the things that Littlefinger and Ramsay Bolton had done to her, he knew that she was mad. He had spent his life struggling to overcome the scars on his body and his mind, but he had never thought of it as an object lesson in how to do the same thing to others. Sansa had, and good people would die because of it; he would not have any part of her schemes.

He left Winterfell on a crisp morning, glad to be away from that snakepit, heading south to deal with unfinished business. He had half wondered whether Sansa would try to hold him in the North, away from the Dragon Queen to whom he owed a debt of honour for getting them away from those damned wights. But of course, Sansa could not comprehend that a debt of honour might exist; she had no honour.

It seemed fitting, somehow, when he heard the horse coming towards him, that it would be Arya he turned to see, Arya who was leaving Winterfell forever, Arya who, like him, had unfinished business in Kingslanding. They could be who they were when they were together, however long it lasted. Valar morghulis, but not today.

**Author's Note:**

> The description of Sandor’s PTSD comes from my personal experience; brains are really bad at suppressing horrific memories. Over thirty years later I still twitch if I’m anywhere near oxygen cylinders, and I have yet to find the off switch for the video replay which my brain insists on supplying to me.


End file.
